


The One Where Megatron And Starscream Get The Same Escape Pod

by fascinationex



Series: transformers fics by fascinationex [28]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Dubcon Cuddling, IN SPACE!, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24090712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex
Summary: "What anunexpected surpriseto find you fleeing from battle, Starscream," Megatron growled. [Two mean robots. In space.]
Relationships: Megatron/Starscream (Transformers)
Series: transformers fics by fascinationex [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1311599
Comments: 22
Kudos: 149





	The One Where Megatron And Starscream Get The Same Escape Pod

Starscream was already in the pod by the time Megatron had limped down the endless corridor to get to it.

The squeal of the atmosphere breach sirens made it hard to hear anyone coming. He could barely hear his own mismatched footsteps. At ankle-height, emergency yellow strip lights threw strange shadows onto the walls. 

The pod was bare metal, ugly and tiny but functional. The entry was open and the body of the vessel was so short that between entry and control panel were barley three steps for a mechanism of Megatron's size. 

Starscream, cast half in shadow beneath the low pod roof, was bent over the controls, long claws of his free hand clicking on its buttons. Three other hand was occupied with his grip on his weapon, and his wings twitched with nerves. 

There were a few scuffs and scratches that suggested he might have seen some of the fighting. Possibly. _Briefly_.

"What an _unexpected surprise_ to find you fleeing from battle, Starscream," he growled.

"Megatron!" yelped Starscream, who could not have heard him approach over the alarms. He whirled on one thruster heel, clawed fingers clenching tightly on his weapon. The indicator on the gun's side glowed red.

Megatron, with his own hand clenched tightly over the slowly-leaking wound in his side, eyed the gun and thought about how fast he could lunge to take it off Starscream before he did something very, very stupid with it.

There were only so many warnings Megatron could afford to give someone, even Starscream. (He chose to ignore how very many warnings he'd already given him.)

Starscream's wings flexed and then relaxed behind him, tips tilting down just a fraction.

"I heard the self-destruct alert. Am I supposed to wait around to deactivate?" he sneered.

"Hmm," Megatron rumbled. He suspected Starscream had been planning his own, personal retreat before he'd even mounted an attack, but he had no proof, and no desire to argue about it while they were stuck in the escape pod for the next ...however many joors. "Just get us out of the blast radius, Starscream," he sighed instead. 

"Of course, Lord Megatron," Starscream said obediently. Since obedience wasn't exactly Starscream's stock in trade, he was clearly equally pleased not to dwell on the topic.

Megatron assessed the threat of them both being annihilated in the self destruct sequence as sufficient to distract his clever, charming and deeply untrustworthy first lieutenant from the potential gains of stabbing Megatron in the back. He turned away to pull the pod's doors closed. 

The heavy door creaked in protest, and the wound in Megatron's side throbbed angrily, leaking faster under pressure. He grunted and heaved harder. Metal met metal, finally, scraping sound lost to the alarms. The pod sealed itself with a soft, pneumatic hiss and plunged them into darkness just as the engines rumbled to life beneath their feet. 

Starscream stepped back from the control panel. His wing smacked into Megatron's shoulder and he jumped. He looked back at Megatron's huge frame looming in the dimness. 

"...how cozy," he muttered, not happily.

The escape pod was cramped and cold, indicator lights at the control bank blinking rapidly in the dark. There was one tiny porthole, but it showed only their huge and once-serviceable ship, too damaged for easy repairs, and lately repurposed into a death trap for the Autobots attacking it.

The pods were so small that in the chaos of battle, they could slip by unnoticed—as this one seemed to be well on its way to doing now. At least Starscream had managed to program a flight path.

"Spare me your whimpering." Megatron agreed with him, really, but it didn't mean he wanted to hear his sulking.

He leaned heavily against the far wall, and with its support lowered himself to the floor. The pod was barren of furnishings, unless one counted the control panel. They weren't made for comfort—only escape. Megatron's autorepair system was already working hard on his injury, generating an uncomfortable hot spot in his side. He wasn't going to stand up for joors and joors and joors just for _Starscream's_ benefit.

Starscream glowered at him, but fell silent. 

Well.

...Sort of.

Unlike a broad, heavy frame like Megatron's, Starscream wasn't made for independent self-regulation: his wings had enough surface area alone to cool down every last drop of energon rushing through them as it cycled. This was a tremendous advantage when he was injecting extremely flammable high grade through his engine and performing high-speed take-offs at maximum thrust. Megatron didn't come close to generating—or dispersing—that much heat unless he was using his fusion cannon to capacity.

It meant that Starscream's "silence" was pretty relative now, though. Megatron could already hear his internals starting to shiver, vibrating in a soft hum in an effort to keep the fluids in them above critical temperature.

Loftily, he ignored it.

Outside their single tiny porthole, the ship finally finished its self destruct programming, and went up in a silent flare of bright light. It glowed for just a moment across the unpainted resista-steel floor and walls of their pod and flamed on the edge of Starscream's wing and his cockpit. They both turned to look, red eyes fixed on that single point of light and destruction. 

Then the void outside fell dark.

It took Megatron's optics a few short moments to respond to the change in light.

Starscream's comm buzzed. He clicked, irritable. "We lost Airsweeper's unit," he reported flatly.

Hmm. A minor loss, and an insignificant air unit. "You should have called a retreat."

"I did," he ground out.

"Not soon enough. _Clearly._ " 

Starscream gave him a sharp and unfriendly look, but was clearly too aware of exactly how long they'd be stuck together to make any argument. As it should be. 

Megatron let his vents crack open, releasing charged gasses built up beneath his armour before they clicked shut again. The injury was making him warm as his autorepair system went into overdrive trying to stop the leak. 

The transcripts he was receiving from Soundwave indicated that the Autobots were in disarray—they'd taken heavy damages. Their chief medic was in fine form. 

"Airsweeper was slow," he relented finally. 

Starscream said nothing in response to this, contrary and irritating as ever.

They were silent for several slow thumps of Megatron's fuel pump.

Outside, debris still streamed by, but the lights of stars were so distant that most of them seemed never to move at all, even though the pod's little engines were clearly moving them.

Starscream's ridiculous shivering rapidly progressed to rattling. 

His wings, usually held stiff and upright—and flashy—slowly dropped as he stood next to the control panel, and then when they reached their nadir something in his frame began to rattle against _them_ , too, loud and obnoxious, and they jerked upright again, like they were shocked to be caught out of place.

Megatron watched this absurdity play out five or six times.

"You're noisy," he growled.

" _I_ can't help that," Starscream snapped. His voice was pitched in the most maximally grating whine, like a struggling engine. 

"Watch your tone," Megatron warned.

"Watch my—Megatron!" Starscream sounded affronted now. Stupid, high-strung seeker.

"Come here, Starscream." Megatron sighed.

He watched Starscream's untrustworthy optics dart suspiciously in the dimness. He inched closer like he thought Megatron was going to leap up and gnaw on him like a rogue scraplet.

He did not. Rather, he snagged him by one thruster and effortlessly tumbled him, yowling, onto the floor, where he immediately started trying to crawl away on his hands and knees like some kind of savage mechanimal.

Megatron reeled him in with an effortful grunt owed more to his injury than Starscream's actual weight. 

He clanked into Megatron's thick, broad chest plates, sprawled awkwardly with his wings sticking out, and went very still.

The heat from Megatron's vents must have washed over him then, because one of his wings started twitching uncertainly again. He gave a short, rattly shudder, seams cracking open and closed in sudden, rapid succession. 

"You will stay there." A pause. " _Quietly_."

"...Yes, Lord Megatron," Starscream said. It was the only sensible thing to be said with Megatron's huge, clawed paw hooked around one of his extremities. All other roads clearly led to frame damage.

Megatron didn't bother to acknowledge this reply. He offlined his optics and leaned back against the wall. At least this way, he had a hand right on Starscream. He'd know if the traitorous little monster so much as twitched.

Once he was resigned to it, Starscream relaxed in slow increments. He untwisted, a little, and Megatron allowed his optics to flicker to light, watching him change position. Megatron magnanimously let go of Starscream's thruster for long enough for him to shift. 

Starscream's internals didn't stop their obnoxious humming, but at least the sheer heat coming off Megatron's injured—and clearly much more energy-efficient—frame stopped the outright rattling. His wings relaxed down from their stiff display, settling comfortably over his shoulders. 

His frame weight was negligible to Megatron, but he could still feel it rest, heavier and heavier as Starscream relaxed against his thick chassis. 

Megatron chose not to draw attention to these changes. It was... hm, counterproductive. 

At last, Starscream was only a warm, smooth weight pressed against him, components settled and grumbling gently inside him in a strange, oddly pleasant counterpoint to the rough hum of Megatron's—which were louder, now, in part because he was the one suffering an actual armour breach.

He didn't say anything, either, when Starscream's optics dimmed and he started to doze, wriggling unconsciously closer to Megatron.

Megatron onlined his optics again when Starscream curled closer, but all that happened was that his claws made tiny scraping noises as he sleepily grasped at Megatron's armour, too light to cause even a scratch to appear.

If Megatron let himself relax into it, it was sort of nice, actually: Starscream's sleek body curled against him, lazy and warm. Every so often his vents cracked open, releasing a soft stream of cool air from his internals into the pod.

The whole pod might have smelled of raw metal and spilt fuel, but it felt still and quiet, like its own soft, dark little bubble of calm in the endless void of space.

Megatron's comm emitted a short buzz. Usually not even noticeable, it was shockingly loud in the quiet.

Starscream startled at the sudden sound, and then somehow surprised himself and yelped. He jerked and slammed one pointy elbow right into Megatron's injury with his sudden, uncoordinated flailing. 

Megatron's whole frame tried to inform him of the damage all at once. He grunted, setting his sharp teeth against the abrupt flare of pain radiating right up his side.

" _Starscream_ ," he snarled, low and pained and deeply hostile. 

"I didn't do it," Starscream insisted, still only halfway out of recharge, denying any involvement in... something Megatron didn't even want to have to address, really... as he scrambled away. "I didn't—I am loyal, I—"

"You are _defective_!" Megatron corrected in a roar. He lunged across the cramped space and grabbed his wing. Then, while Starscream thrashed, he heaved him back across the floor with a tremendous screeching of metal (and of Starscream's grating voice), until he had him where he could keep a firm grip on his frantic first lieutenant. 

His claws scraped on Starscream's cockpit and he went still again.

"Megatron," he started, pathetically. His engine whined. His wings twitched so violently Megatron had to move his helm to avoid being struck. 

"Silence," Megatron demanded, shoving one wing down with his free hand. Starscream made a horrid grinding noise at the pressure, and after a moment of uncomfortable wriggling, Megatron let it go. It snapped back up to match the presentation of the other one. 

"Go back to recharge." 

Starscream shivered. "...Megatron?" 

Megatron crushed him more tightly against his chassis and held him there until he was not merely still, but also starting to uncoil.

"Recharge," he repeated, less loudly but no less insistently. Then he returned to the comm line, and Shockwave's report. 

Outside, debris drifted past, even as the bright stars seemed like fixed points in the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> just a little a space cuddling, for a treat


End file.
